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Month: August 2018

July of 2016 I had been retired for a year after having served my country with honour and distinction for nearly 32 years as a member of the Royal Canadian Air Force, but I wasn’t living the retirement dream, in fact, far from it. The only thing that got me excited was anytime after noon when in my mind it was deemed acceptable to crack open a bottle of whatever would start to make me feel better about myself and all the doubts that I had brewing in my little mind.

This challenge saved me, or at the very least helped me begin to see a little more clearly in which direction I was traveling. Saved me from myself and my whirling pit of self pity and helped to put the final nail in my drinking coffin. I have done a minimum of 22 push ups every day since that fateful day, that’s roughly 16,368 push ups to date, but who’s counting. As silly as it may seem, doing 22 push ups each day helps me focus, as an added bonus they also help in keeping my arms and back toned. Focus on taking each day as it comes, to not get too far ahead of myself. I can’t change yesterday and there is no advantage to worrying about tomorrow, as much as we plan and prepare no one knows what may come to pass. I don’t totally wing it, as I’m a wee bit OCD. I do have an idea of what I’ll cook for dinner, a plan to do laundry, housework, etc… but there remains much more flexibility in my day and my life since I’m no longer tied to the bottle. I’ve yet to thank Major General Christian Drouin for throwing down the gauntlet, but I will when I can find the words that won’t seem too sappy.

Hubster and I have a lot of moving parts at the moment with many proverbial balls in the air. We’ve just sold our home in Nova Scotia so that we can move back to Ontario and we have 14 days in which to do it – yikes! Likely we will put our belongings into storage as we are heading to our home in Mexico for the winter, and quite frankly it will be nice to not have to worry about making arrangements to have the driveway ploughed and the house looked after, etc… (hope that doesn’t come off as whining or complaining). In the spring we can return to our little slice of heaven on Lake Huron as we happily house hunt in a hot market where everything goes over asking and with no conditions. Just a wee rant!

1 August 2018 marks two years of sobriety, and as they say a picture is worth a thousand words. The first pic was taken approximately three weeks before I finally figured out enough was enough. The second picture was taken this morning and if I can see the difference I am certain others can too! I’m grateful as always to have traveled my path and even more grateful today that my path is now a sober one!